This post has been inspired by two separate things. First, the experience of seeking out novelty songs for my late September Twitter challenge #Welltheresanovelty. Second, an article in The Guardian by Zach Schonfeld about films and TV shows which appeared today (October 1, 2024). It made me reflect on the role of physical media in my life and how curating that social and personal history is now more important than ever.
Disappearing musical history
I started collecting records in January 1974 when I bought Billy Howard’s single King of the Cops. Now, I would be the first to admit that it doesn’t stand the test of time, but the B side, Bond is a four letter word, definitely does. However, if I didn’t have the 7 inch single in my possession, that piece of personal history would be irretrievable on Spotify, the dominant force in streaming and the trend setter for the modern music experience. Do I think King of the Cops would have a renaissance if it was available on Spotify? Of course not, because apart from it not being particularly funny when listened to objectively, how many people now remember Ironside, McCloud or Cannon? The novelty single market is not particularly well served on Spotify with obvious gaps, for example, the whole of Not The Nine O’ Clock News, The Original Muppet Show Cast albums, all the Spitting Image songs, either Captain Beaky single by Keith Michell or The Oldest Swinger in Town by Fred Wedlock.
During December 2022, I took part in Blogmas and included an entry about Isla St Clair’s Christmas album entitled Isla I wrote to Isla to let her know about my entry and it turned out that she didn’t have the rights to it and it was nowhere to be seen on Spotify. Happily Isla has now rectified the situation and all 12 songs from an absolutely gorgeous Christmas album can be found here. It is still not on Spotify, so it will continue to be a pleasure only for those who know about it, which now includes you! I am very pleased to think that my small blog played a part in reuniting both Isla and the internet with such a lovely album, but if I hadn’t had a physical copy in the first place it may have remained lost in time, at least as far as the internet is concerned.
I am aware that my examples may not seem important to some, but musically we are in danger of losing some nuggets of gold amongst the tons of detritus. Remember that every record you dislike was bought by perhaps many people at the time and deserves to be preserved to reflect the huge variety of music available throughout past eras.
What happened to that film?
As Zach Schonfeld observes in his excellent article, Hollywood is deliberately reducing the amount of film and TV available to us on both streaming services and the internet. This is done for a variety of reasons, that may be financial or cultural in nature, but whatever the underlying reason they impoverish us as consumers of popular culture. I have studied popular culture in my spare time, and it is not unusual to see this situation occur. For example, folk songs in the days before musical notation became available to the masses, and before even the most rudimentary recording devices were available, were lost in time because they were considered unimportant by those with influence. Classical music was seen as superior to folk music, especially as folk music told the stories of ordinary lives which those in power have always been disinterested in, so the latter was allowed to fade. That fading of our cultural history would have been even more complete had it not been for far sighted individuals such as Cecil Sharp, Lucy Broadwood and Ralph Vaughan Williams who collected songs from across the UK either written down or recorded on wax cylinders. If you want the full story this Historia Magazine article is fascinating. Schonfeld recounts the inadvertent cultural vandalism that means we have lost 90% of the silent films made before the advent of talkies, because they were considered disposable and were not valuable in a financial or cultural sense. In the case of Charlie Chaplin he destroyed all the negatives of one of his films as a tax write off! In the early days of the internet, you could find a number of websites that would do DVD copies of films that were out of print or were withheld for various reasons. Sadly, these websites have been closed down by the companies that hold the original rights, even though they have no intention of releasing the material themselves. For me, the saddest situation concerns Richard Williams magnificent 1971 version of A Christmas Carol. I had the foresight to get one of these unofficial DVDs which I love revisiting, but for everyone else it has been locked away in a vault somewhere for decades, probably being damaged by neglect, because of rights issues. There are a number of rumours as to who has it in their possession, but let’s just say that I will not accuse anyone on here because I cannot afford the libel case! Whatever the facts, it has been unseen on television and on DVD and is fading from our cultural memories. It contains amazing voice performances, chiefly by Alastair Sim reprising his role as Scrooge 20 years after his portrayal became the benchmark by which all other Scrooges are judged. How can we let a treasure like that languish in a vault or even a mouse trap if the rumours are true! Many of my favourite shows from the past never even had a VHS release. For example, the excellent ITV version of Vice Versa starring Peter Bowles and Iain Cuthbertson has never appeared in any format.
The wholesale destruction of BBC and ITV programmes from the 50s, 60s and 70s is well known, and, if it hadn’t have been for the fans who obsessively recorded every episode, whole stories of Doctor Who would have been lost for ever. They were not to know that the wiping of their beloved programme was going to take place, it was just a piece of huge luck for the BBC who were increasingly embarrassed by their short sighted approach to their archive. What about now? Who is recording and more importantly keeping episodes of The Powerpuff Girls or Dexter’s Laboratory, two marvellous cartoons that have recently gone behind a paywall? No one, because we assumed that we would always be able to access them freely. I have a library of DVDs covering a whole range of films and TV, many of which are still available, but some of which are not. I have seen content on YouTube deleted, shows disappear from view on streaming services such as Netflix or get cut to pieces when they are shown, for various reasons. We never know which one of our favourite series or films is the next candidate for online oblivion.
For all of you who, like me, have a huge library of vinyl, DVD and Blu-ray, don’t be tempted to downsize. Keep hold of it, even when you move, because that is something that can never be taken away from you at the whim of a TV, film or music executive who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Somewhat of a misnomer this week as these are two new books borrowed from Rainham Library, but as I said at the start of the challenge we really must support our local libraries. So, this week, we continue one series of books and complete another.
Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch
The fifth book in the Rivers of London series sees PC Peter Grant travel outside London for the first time, where he is sent to investigate the disappearance of two girls, Nicole Lacey and Hannah Marstowe that may have a supernatural element. The search for the two girls takes him to Hereford and Worcestershire where his liaison, DC Dominic Croft, gets a crash course in weird phenomena. Inspector Nightingale sends Beverly Brook to keep him company and negotiate with supernatural beings. The plot twist from Book 4 bubbles away under the surface, but, as it turns out, that is perhaps the least important part of the book. Beverly shows herself to be a very effective partner for Peter, personally and professionally, and their growing relationship is a delight. In typical Aaronovitch style the book wrongfoots us plot wise, but I obviously won’t spoil it. Suffice to say I got to the end of the first part completely confused as to where it was headed next, but the second half was just as much of a delight. We meet Hugh Oswald, a contemporary of Nightingale who was involved in Ettersberg, and his daughter Melissa, both of whom give an insight into the wizarding life outside the capital. This is all part of the deepening folklore of the Rivers of London series which has made it such a great series to read. As ever, I wholeheartedly recommend this book, but you do definitely need to have read Books 1 – 4 before you tackle this one as a certain amount of familiarity with the rest of the series is a must. Roll on Book 6!
Forever Geek by Holly Smale
This is the sixth and last full length novel in the brilliant Geek Girl series. As with any favourite series, there is a simultaneous excitement at seeing it reach a conclusion and a sadness that this is it, unless the author decides to revisit the character later on in their writing career. Whilst keeping my fingers crossed for the latter, I am very happy to report that if we never see Harriet Manners again, her story is brought to the most satisfying possible conclusion, however bittersweet it might be.
Harriet finds herself on a flight to Australia with grandmother Bunty and best friend Nat. Harriet’s aim is to help Nat’s designs get out to a wider audience, whilst also enjoying a holiday with her grandmother. The modelling seems to be a little more unplanned than expected, although Harriet has decided to be spontaneous, as far as she can be anyway! She has a strict schedule of calls with new boyfriend Jasper, taking into account time zones and his restaurant shifts, but that schedule is ruined soon after she lands when Harriet breaks her new smartphone and is given the most old fashioned mobile possible by Bunty. The trouble for the new, more spontaneous, Harriet is that where she makes spur of the moment decisions they lead to total chaos. For example, her first self-sourced modelling job sees her sailing out to the Great Barrier Reef with a very hazy idea of what she is doing, dressed in an outfit that is falling apart bit by bit. This leads to a series of events that even Harriet’s many fans will not have foreseen.
Holly Smale finds a way to bring back all of the main characters for a final turn on the catwalk. Wilbur was in the background this time, but he makes the most of his appearances in this finale. Nick aka Lion Boy and fearsome fashion designer Yuka Ito play pivotal roles in this book and it’s a delight to see them both. Harriet’s parents are largely heard or mentioned rather than seen, but like Wilbur their stories have been nicely concluded in previous books.
I love Geek Girl and I love Australia so this book was always going to be a favourite of mine. There was more seriousness than perhaps had been apparent in previous books, but that was right given Harriet’s changing nature, and the ending left me quite emotional with its beauty and insight. However, this is Geek Girl, so Harriet leaves you with a smile on your face and a lift in your spirits. It truly is one of the crowning glories of Young Adult writing and whatever your age it is a delight. I just hold out the faint hope that Harriet might come back, older, wiser but just as chaotic!
David Essex and Tim Newman London Palladium September 23 2024
This concert was an anniversary present for Janet whose bedroom wall had a number of David Essex posters on it from when she was 12 or 13. Never having seen him in concert, I thought it would be a good opportunity for Janet to revisit her musical memories and have an evening that she would thoroughly enjoy. When you see a singer who is 50 years into his career, you are taking a chance that the voice and stage presence is intact, but in David Essex’s case his grounding as a performer in stage musicals made it very likely that it was going to be a very good night.
Tim Newman
One of the most common questions I heard at the start of the evening was ‘Who’s Tim Newman?’. Well, the people who asked that couldn’t have seen David Essex recently as this was Tim’s fourth tour with the legendary singer. David saw him when he auditioned for the musical All the Fun of the Fair which Essex wrote himself. Tim Newman is an absolute bundle of energy. He bounded on to the stage clearly determined to make an impression on the audience. As soon as I saw him, I said to Janet that he had to be a veteran of musical theatre as he reminded me of so many of the forces of nature I had shared time with on and off stage!
As an aside, I have been to three concerts in the last year or so aimed primarily at a younger demographic, Zoe Wees, Sabrina Carpenter and of course Taylor Swift. In each case, the support act was made to feel very welcome and supported by the fans. Older audiences are generally disposed to seeing the support act as something to be endured, and they tend not to be anything like as welcoming at first, so the artists have to really work hard for their applause.
Tim started with an excellent song from his new album The Light called Scared of Going Under. I immediately warmed to him because of the sheer quality and power of his voice. It was powerful with a really impressive range and a warmth to it that can’t be taught. He sang over a backing track, which is quite unusual in a venue like the London Palladium, so it was just him on the stage with no musicians to take the pressure off, but from the first song he showed that he could rise to the occasion. Let Me Sleep is a soaring ballad that just fizzed with vocal power and true emotion and I was completely won over by how amazingly good it sounded. I thought that it was definitely going to be the highlight of the set. In between songs, Newman was working the audience like a pro with humour, tiggerish enthusiasm and genuine gratitude at being on the tour. A large number of those in the audience were also starting to warm to him and extend their applause from the second song onwards. High Hopes was the third song, sung just as well as the first two, but good though it was, it couldn’t match the songs either side of it. The highlight of the set was I’m With You, a song co-written and sung by Tim and his son Parker, who has already appeared in the West End in Les Mis and Mrs Doubtfire. It is a reflection on the close loving relationship between father and son which made me quite emotional. The backing track featured Parker’s voice, allowing father and son to duet, and the result was one of the most heart warming moments you could imagine. He then introduced Parker, who was in the audience, and although we couldn’t see him in the Circle, the warmth of the applause when he was introduced was lovely to be a part of. The final two songs, Beat on Tap and Burn were delivered with real aplomb and with the confidence of a support act who knew he had done his job in warming up an initially resistant audience. Whether Tim Newman’s future lies in singing in concert or in musical theatre, the enthusiasm and entertainment value from this seasoned performer is guaranteed.
David Essex
The moment David Essex came on stage, there was a huge scream of delight from the fans who, for the most part, had almost certainly followed this legend of British music since his heartthrob days of the 1970s. Janet broke into a huge grin when he came on stage, a grin that didn’t leave her face for the rest of the night. One thing was clear from the first song, and that was the fact that the twinkle in his eye that endeared him to fans all those years ago was definitely still there. His ‘choreography’ consisted of rotating his left leg and then his right, to the accompaniment of screams in each case! The grin from the stage showed that he was not going to take himself seriously in his sixth decade as a performer. An early highlight of the performance was his second song, Lamplight, a top ten hit from 1973, delivered with flair and atmosphere that reminded me how good the single was even if it isn’t a track you hear on the radio these days. This was followed by the gorgeous If I Could from 1975 which unaccountably missed the Top 10. It is a love song from the heart of London, Canning Town to be exact, and from the heart of David Essex. The beauty of the tune and the plaintive delivery of the lyrics was undercut by his brilliant aside after the line ‘If I give you my life, would you be my wife?’ which of course caused the overwhelmingly female audience to scream out ‘Yes’ in unison! He turned to guitarist Gerry Moffett and said ‘I’m gonna need a bigger bungalow!!’ which bought the house down.
Dangerous is a track from the stage show All the Fun of the Fair and having heard it, I wonder why the musical isn’t more widely known and hasn’t been revived in the West End. It is powerful and subtly menacing in the way Essex himself delivered it, combining a pop sensibility and stage experience that he expertly brought to the performance. The next two tracks, Father and Son, which trod similar thematic ground to Tim and Parker Newman’s I’m with You, and the 1982 hit Me and my Girl (Nightclubbing), showed us both sides of David Essex the pop star. The former demonstrated his emotional connection to his family that reflected his older self, and the latter his roguish persona that drove his early career. Both sides are still alive and well! Vocally, the most impressive song of the evening was Oh What a Circus from Evita, a Number 3 hit from 1978. He was the original Che Guevara on stage and his delivery of this amazing song was so good that it was as if the 46 years had never gone by. He was note perfect, passionate and utterly mesmerising, and proved that he could still handle the big show stoppers with aplomb. Next was one of my favourite songs ever, penned by the genius Mike Batt, sung incredibly then and now by David Essex, and as he said a song you will hear when pushing your trolley at Sainsbury’s! A Winter’s Tale reached Number 2 in 1983 and, in my opinion, was very unfortunate in not taking that final step to the top. It’s one of the great Christmas songs, but it also sounds pretty damn good on a balmy September evening I can tell you!
City Lights, Stardust and Imperial Wizard are three songs that radio has forgotten, but all three are definitely worth revisiting, especially the last of these. Imperial Wizard sounds like the template for a Pet Shop Boys song with its sardonic lyrics and thumping chorus, and for some unknown reason only reached Number 32 in the charts. It certainly deserved to do much better than that and it’s a track you really should seek out. Rock On was David’s first really big hit and, I have to admit, not one I warmed to. Hearing it live, however, made me realise that it is in fact an urgent, brilliantly constructed song that was way ahead of its time. It has a sparseness to it that was genuinely innovative at the time and sounds no less innovative 50 years later. There are a number of songs I have only really understood and appreciated when hearing them live and Rock On is the latest of those. The next trio of tracks featured Here We are All Together, another heartfelt, reflective song that he delivered beautifully, I’m Gonna Make you a Star, his first Number One which had everyone singing along, delivering the ‘I don’t think so!’ line with gusto, and finally Silver Dream Machine his ode to the power and beauty of the motorbike. Leaving the stage, it was clear that there had to be an encore as he had missed out perhaps his best song, at least in my opinion.
Sure enough, the encore started with Hold Me Close, a genuinely joyful, euphoric love song that raised the roof on the Palladium. I loved it as a 10 year old and I love it now. It is one of those songs that just makes you feel good whatever your mood. He followed that with You Really Got Me, a cover of the Kinks classic. Here, I must just mention the band that supported David Essex so ably throughout the night. Dave Needham on lead guitar was just superb all night with every solo seeming to lift already excellent material. Keyboardist Steve Turner was excellent, whether playing in the background, giving a texture to the songs, or taking centre stage with solos. Bass guitarist Gerry Moffett and drummer Dave Wallace were the heartbeat of the quartet, giving their fellow musicians and David himself the opportunity to shine as well as taking centre stage themselves during their solos.
When the show ended after the final two songs, It’s Gonna Be Alright and Missing You (Magic), Janet and many other fans floated away on a cloud of nostalgia having revisited one of their first musical loves and found him just as much of a cheeky chappie as ever. It was one of the happiest nights we have had at a concert and proved that David Essex is still one of England’s consummate entertainers. It was a reminder of everything he has done and the way he still holds the affection of his fans. Janet went home with her merchandise but more importantly with the memories of a joyful evening.
So, in the last two weeks I have finished the book I was reading at the end of Week 1, read another and completed half of a third. Oh, and I have read a few chapters of a Kenneth Williams autobiography that is there when I can’t properly concentrate on a storyline on the evening train! Not much for me, but I am not back to my full 4 day a week commute which is what helps me speed through my reads.
Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch
Broken Homes is the fourth book in the Rivers of London series which I have read entirely through my local library. It is simply brilliant, unsurprisingly as the rest of the series is also brilliant. The series features, as its central character, PC Peter Grant, who discovers that he has latent magical abilities. He is seconded to a magical unit, which is under the charge of Inspector Thomas Nightingale, and exceptionally powerful wizard, that operates from a house called The Folly. He and his partner, PC Lesley May, learn basic spells and operate within the grey area of crime and magic. Lesley, having suffered catastrophic damage to her face, is on semi-permanent leave from the regular police but has become a de facto member of Falcon, the name given to the Folly and its supernatural remit by the Metropolitan Police.
This book is centred around the Elephant and Castle, specifically the Skygarden Tower, which is a 60s tower block built in the brutalist style but bafflingly a listed building. It becomes clear that magic is afoot when Peter finds out that the garden that rings the block contains river spirits and tree nymphs. Before long, Peter realises that the block itself could be the source of dangerous magic that would be impossible to control if it was allowed to escape.
The series just gets better and better in my view, and reading the books in order has been a fantastic way to immerse myself properly in the world of Rivers of London. Ben Aaronovitch writes in a style that is a hybrid of police procedural and Terry Pratchett, and it is utterly addictive. The confidence in his world and his writing just jumps off of the page, and it this confidence that allows him to throw in a jaw dropping twist very near the end that left me completely shocked. I know that there are a further four books in this series, and I intend to borrow all of them from the library before the year is out, assuming they are available. Indeed, I am reading the sixth book at the moment.
Strange Conflict by Dennis Wheatley
Just before this challenge started I bought a book from eBay which I read two or three times as a teenager during my horror phase! My original copy had gone ages ago, and I hadn’t been able to find it since in any charity shop or second hand bookshop. Strange Conflict was published in 1941 and, being set in WWII, was an extremely contemporary tale of espionage centred around the losses suffered by the Atlantic Convoys. When the Duc de Richleau suggests to Admiral Pellinore that the Nazis are using Black Magic, it is initially dismissed out of hand, but once he has convinced the admiral that the threat is real, it is time for him and his companions to take the battle to their mortal enemies on the astral plane. Duc de Richleau and his friends, Simon, Rex, Richard and Marie Lou, were featured in a number of previous books so you get little real backstory here, but they are already a tight knit team having faced Black Magic practitioners of many types already. These adventures are alluded to but not concentrated on in any detail.
OK, I have to give you a very clear warning. As Talking Pictures TV might say, the book features language and attitudes that some people may find offensive. The amount of overt racism, by modern standards, is quite shocking, but it is little different to anything that you might read in James Bond, and it does avoid the rampant misogyny of Ian Fleming’s original novels. If you accept it as being of its time, you are left with a very well written, well paced and thought provoking novel. I enjoyed the story probably as much this time around as I had as a teenager, but I don’t know if it was the nostalgic pull of rereading an old favourite. What I can say is that it would make an excellent film or TV series with its fast paced plot, and that if you can get past the overtly colonial attitudes of its writer, I do think it stands up well as a work of literature.
In Progress
Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch, the fifth book of the Rivers of London series. Also borrowed from the library the final Geek Girl novel which I can’t wait to read. Until next week then, it’s bye for now. Happy reading!
September 1 – 7 2024
In the first week of my rereading challenge I have finished one library book, started another and read an August purchase. The three books could be described as eclectic, matching my usual reading and blogging habit, although I think there is a tenuous connection between the two I have finished. Anyway, here goes.
Geek Girl : Head Over Heels by Holly Smale
Head Over Heels is the fifth book in the Geek Girl series, all of which I have borrowed from the local library. That’s perhaps quite geeky in itself, or maybe not! Anyway, I am totally hooked on the character of Harriet Manners, the heroine of the series. She has been scouted by a model agency and has become successful against the odds. She has overcome her own shyness and inability to walk in heels (!), the machinations of jealous rivals, run-ins with borderline psychotic fashion designers and the cultural shocks involved in travelling to places like Japan and Russia. Through it all, however, she has retained the same core behaviour, values and thought processes. That to me is the most amazing element of the books. Harriet has never been a caricature, she has never found anything easy and she has been bullied on and off the catwalk because of her perceived oddness. What has changed from Book 1 to Book 5 is her self-reliance as she has found reserves of determination and fight whenever she most needed them.
I have read that Harriet was based on Holly as a child and the main bully, called Alexa in the books, actually received a ‘thank you’ in the dedication of the first book for inspiring the novel! I hope the bully hates seeing Holly’s success. There are definitely parallels with my own school days. Although I was never going to be a model (!), like Harriet I was bullied incessantly at school because I was different. Books, facts and music were my escape from the age of 6 or 7, and I have no doubt that many of the readers of this series, like me, are way past the age group for YA novels, but love the character and the way she has overcome what we perhaps couldn’t.
This particular entry takes Harriet’s story into new territory as she realises, perhaps for the first time, that she can have more control over her modelling and her life. We see her grow and we see her deepen as a character. I think that this book is the best of the five I have read so far, and I am looking forward to seeing how her story ends in the sixth and final book, although I will miss Harriet once that story is over.
The Stories of our Christmas Customs by N.F. Pearson with illustrations by Frank Hampson
Now, I have always been a Christmas fanatic from as early as I can remember. Like Harriet I am very likely to tell you fact after fact about my favourite season of the year! I have written articles about it for the h2g2 online encyclopaedia, taken part in Blogmas twice and present a talk about Christmas to my foreign students every year! You could say I am obsessed with Christmas and you wouldn’t be far wrong. Now, this Ladybird book is one I never owned as a kid, but I am sure I recognised some of the pictures, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I took it out of the school library. The illustrations by Frank Hampson are gorgeous and evocative and the text by N.F. Pearson is superb. Even after all my reading and writing on Christmas I learnt a few new things about the subject. As a piece of social history this book is an absolute find. It cost me more than the 18p cover price (!) but it was worth every penny.
In progress
I am currently reading another library book, Ben Aaronovitch’s Broken Homes from the amazing Rivers of London series. I will be reporting back on that next weekend. Happy reading everyone!
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 